Copyright 1991 Sudden Incorporated, Rod Coleman Positioning the Cursor Positioning the text cursor is how the user indicates to the program the part of the file he would like to view or edit. Being able to be anywhere in the file instantly is how Live Editing starts. When you sit down to edit, the first thing you need to do is move to the general area of the file that you want to edit. Next you will need to find the exact location and place the text cursor. Instant Access and Dynamic Scrolling will allow you to do these things. First do a left click on the scroll bar at about the corresponding place you want to go in the file. Next do a left drag in the window until your text is in view. Now you can position the cursor by doing another left click at the place you want to edit. Go ahead, zoom up and down through the file; try it out. It quickly becomes natural, and once you get used to this new approach, the old way feels like walking through wet concrete. Dynamic Scrolling may seem fast, but for certain cases, Sudden View has an even faster way of getting around: Power Keys. There are times when your hands are on the keyboard, and you only need to move a few spaces. In this situation nothing is faster than using the data keys in combination with the Control key. These are also known as Power Keys, which is actually an old idea that was generally put aside about the time separate cursor keys showed up on keyboards. Dropping the feature was premature. Sudden View restores the concept to it's former glory. And last of all, there may be a time when you will actually want to use these "new" cursor keys (maybe you're drinking coffee?). In any case, all of these approaches to getting around your file work reasonably well in Sudden View. The trick is to choose the one that fits the situation. Let's review them in detail. Instant Access If you think, like Carrie Fisher, that instant gratification takes to long, do a left click anywhere on the scroll bar. You will then be positioned at that relative point in the file, as indicated by the black box. The speed of access is the same whether you have a four Kbyte or four megabyte file. If you are not use to it, this can quickly get out of hand. If you get instantly lost, just click your heels together three times, and select "Last Change" in the Power Menu. This will take you and Toto back home to the last place you were editing. There it is: Instant Access; Dorthy and Carrie never had it so good. Dynamic Scrolling Once you find the neighborhood using Instant Access, it's time to put the text where you want it. Just do a left drag up, down, left or right; and you'll find that the text moves with your hand, at a proportional rate. Dynamic Scrolling allows you to put the text where you want it: implicitly. This may seem strange at first, but it quickly becomes natural. Try going slow until you get use to it. It's not uncommon to zoom completely by a page without noticing it. This can give you a feeling of being out of control, but just relax; after a while you won't even notice the mouse at all. It will become natural to simply put the text where you want it. As noted, Dynamic Scrolling works either vertically or horizontally, but only one direction at a time. It detects slight movement when you first begin dragging, and then will only continue in that direction. Try it: first drag up and down and then let up on the mouse button before doing a left or right drag. If you scroll way to the right and get lost in the fog, just check the X position indicator on the left side of the Status Line. This will tell you how far out you are. A quick way back is Shift Tab. Try it. If the mouse cursor reaches the edge of the screen before locating the text you want, just release the mouse button, move the mouse pointer to the opposite boundary and continue dragging until you find it. You can scroll through the entire file this way if you wish, but there are some faster and easier ways of going long distances. Once you have the view of the text that you want, place the text cursor by doing another left click at the place you want to edit (see Implied Editing Action). If you do two left clicks by mistake, the Paste Buffer will pop up. Just click one more time or hit Esc. See Text Arrangement for more details. Fast Dynamic Scrolling For those of you hard core power freaks, who already have the personalized version of Sudden View, you might want to try the turbo version of Dynamic Scrolling. If you do a left drag in the scroll bar, you will notice that the text scrolls even faster than normal. Take it easy at first, or you'll encounter the strobe illusion on page boundaries. You know, just like the wagon wheels on the old western movies. But don't worry, you'll quickly get use to it. Sorry, this feature only works for vertical scrolling (is there someone out there who really wants to go this fast sideways?). You also may notice that the Scroll Bar position indicator does not track this scrolling operation. The indicator is proportional to position in the file, while scrolling always occurs at a fixed rate (I tried it the other way, but it was too crazy). Again, even if you're a power user, be careful with all mouse scrolling until you have the feel for it, or you may find yourself in next Thursday. Tab Key Some programs treat the Tab key as a data key, putting in special codes that indicate multiple spaces. Sudden View uses the Tab key with Implicit Formatting to take the cursor to the beginning of the next field or the end of the current field. Shift Tab does the same thing in the other direction. Tab will also allow you to determine the format of an apparently blank line. Once again, Tab or Shift Tab moves the cursor; it does not alter the file. By the way, that doesn't mean that Sudden View doesn't convert and support the Tab "ASCII Control Character"; it does. See Importing Files. Cursor Keys The Cursor keys work just like cursor keys, unless you are holding down the Shift or Alternate keys. Any Alternate cursor key will scroll the text instead of the cursor. It's sort of like Dynamic Scrolling, but it's not very dynamic. It's nice for doing a simple adjustment. Shift Up or Shift Down will move one screen in the indicated direction. Some people think of this as Page Up/Down, although it's actually only a screen minus one line of movement. Whatever you call it, its still handy for getting around in big gulps from the keyboard. Another way of "Paging", is by clicking on the double arrows at the top and bottom of the scroll bar. This will page up and down one screen at a time in the same way as the Shift cursor. It's useful if your hand is already on the mouse and you want to casually read the file. Shift Left and Right will move left or right one word respectively; again it's sometimes useful if your hand's on the keyboard. All of the cursor functions also map into the Power Keys for even faster and more convenient access. See Power Keys under Keyboard Details. Clr/Home Key It's here if you need it, but I've never found it of much use. As normal, the Home key will take you to the top of the file; Shift Home, to the bottom - nothing is cleared. Again, I find Instant Access and Dynamic Scrolling a much better way of going long distances. By the way, there is also a Top of File function in the Find and Replace Power Menu which IS very useful. It also resets the search pattern as it moves you to the top of the file for another search. Clr/Home can also be used in its place for the same effect. Methods for Positioning the Cursor Well, that's about it for getting around your file. Oh, I just about forgot; "Find & Replace" functions will also get you around the file, but we've dedicated a whole section to the subject, so you can refer to it there. I've also included the following chart to help summarize the positioning methods. Have fun, and don't forget the Power Keys. Action Effect Left click on scroll bar Instant Access to any point in file Left drag in text window Dynamic scroll of text Left drag in scroll bar * Fast dynamic scroll Cursor keys (arrows) Move text cursor Alternate/Cursor keys Scroll text window Shift Up or Down arrows Up one screen or Down one screen Shift Left or Right arrows Left or right one word respectively "Last Change" in Power Menu Goes to last four edited positions Tab Move to begin or end of next field Shift Tab Move to begin or end of last field Clr/Home Goes to top if file Shift Clr/Home Goes to bottom if file "Find and Replace" Just like it says. * Personalize version only